Deadlake

It might be an ideal to go across the pond to CN. They are quite a few threads there of C9.25 and C11 owners who have moved to a Mewlon to take advantage of no dewing, faster cooling and smooth mirrors allowing for better contrast. Question is will you use it if you have a 4” which cools in no time at all?

I think @GavStar had to send back his CFF due to an issue with the oil. Edit: Managed to find the thread, @GavStar had other issues with that scope, not related to oil. I suspect from reading CN there are some outliers, if you get a good one then you are set.

What is the Orion riser's weight, only shows the package weight. The ADM special is around 2.5 kg.

if you have to ask then you cannot afford it... 😀 A large amount of metal to be CNC'd..

I suspect Japan has one foundry for the glass, the furnaces have Palladium walls to produce FPL type glass. These foundries use to exist in the US until the bean counter's sold them off as the furnace was worth more than the business it supported. The only other foundries will be in Russia and China.

Interested in your result. I've ordered a BBHS T2 mirror diagonal for BV usage. Given the result of the 2" mirror diagonal I have interested if you can confirm the same result, the T2 BBHS prism made my Vixen into a totally different scope. Also, have you managed to find your HR 3.6 mm yet? Amazing what you find when re-organising the garage after moving in a month ago...

Do you think this is the limit?

You mean TSA120 are so common 😀 Seriously I wish I had a good night’s seeing to give an accurate report and a BBHS mirror diagonal. Given I’ve almost got all the parts for using the AZ100 I predict clouds….

With the AZ100 have you used any other tripods at all, wondered what the stability was like?

I've noticed the LZOS is giving more detail on Jupiter using a mirror over a prism diagonal. I'm going to order a BBHS T2 for BV use and then I can do a better comparison, no T2 click locks anywhere. Viewing was over around 3-4 nights, with seeing ranging between good to medium. To be honest this could be related to the diagonal as the HR in the SD103S using the BBHS prism diagonal is showing the same level of detail (to close to call or really make a difference you would be very happy with either) as the TOE. So many variables to work thru....

What scope (weight) are you using with it?

Do they come up in the secondhand market, not seen any?

Send it over for a comparison, my LZOS is to heavy to ship… 😃

I suspect the TOE are better but more expensive then then HR’s. The HR’s are the only real competitors to the TOE’s, Tele Vue has never fielded a competitor to either EP IMHO.

I agree, @jetstream, send me the TSA 120 then apart from a 6” I have most of the APO apertures covered and I can start collecting dobs like you keep telling me I should! 😁

I have a Tak TOE 4 mm and it gives me the best views of Jupiter when coupled with a LZOS 130 mm scope (Strehl 0.98 green wavelength). I also have all the Vixen HR’s, however on Jupiter I don’t get the same level of detail as the TOE and am tempted to get a TOE 3.3 mm to compare with the HR at some point. On the moon the HR’s do not disappoint.

Interested to know have you’ve got on with the LE’s, a buy?

Cloud cover for the next week… 😩

I thought error probation was additive in this sense, so adding more errors (lower performance lens) after light propagating thru a poor atmosphere makes the image worse...

The benefit of a lightweight Japanese master piece, unlike the Russian/German models some people have, affectionaly known as tank.. 😀

It's a typo on my part.

Note the T-Pod comes in black as well, but here is red and an AZ100

Agree John, went I looked at various threads my expectation (model) of what tripod was most stable didn't match a user report (experimental).

Didn't mean to get into such a long discussion on this and maybe I'm not explaining myself. Agree stability of tripod is proportional to central of gravity. Question is what happens when tripod is going out of balance, if the legs have a greater tensile strength they will not move (deflect) as much as a tripod with legs that have a lower tensile straight and as stated angle of legs helps with stability of tripod. Some of the tripod sites use tensile strength, load and centre of gravity to work out moment of inertia applied to tripod. Point I was trying to make is stability of tripod is not just a function of weight of tripod even if it helps. Also surprised at empirical reports from owners of both BB and T-Pod which didn't match my understanding of which tripod would perform better. Ps: Agree this is a AZ100 thread, but what else can you tune on the AZ100 apart from the tripod?

Agree, paying one third more for a small gain of performance on a scope that already costs quite a bit... 😬